Vaporization experiments in the levitation furnace help constrain the degree to which volatiles may have been lost during accretion, early heavy bombardment of Earth, and the formation of Earth’s moon.

Partial vaporization of a sample at ~2400 °C in the levitation laser furnace

We also learn about the formation and composition of chondrules and meteorites by synthesizing analogues in the lab and performing vaporization experiments on them.  Those samples are then analyzed for chemical and isotopic compositions to determine kinetic fractionation factors due to vaporization at high temperatures.

Synthetic and partially vaporized micrometeorites (~2 mm diameter)